Dr. Laura Renninger
Dean
Music
Shepherd University
United States of America
Biography
Dr. Laura Renninger is the Dean of Teaching, Learning and Instructional Resources at Shepherd. Her office oversees several university programs including Academic Support, Academic Advising, Assessment, Audio-Visual Media Services, Career Development and Co-op, First-Year Experience and Common Reading, Instructional Technology and TRiO Student Support Services. Dr. Renninger is directly in charge of faculty training and workshops. She is also Professor of Music and teaches courses in Music Psychology, World Music, and Western Music History at Shepherd University. She received her Bachelor’s of Music degree in Performance from Miami University and both her Master’s of Music and Ph.D. degrees in Musicology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Dr. Renninger’s research is concentrated primarily in the area of Music Cognition. Her research is internationally known and has been presented at several conferences throughout the United States, Europe, Asia, the Middle East and Oceana. In the summer of 1998, her work was chosen as one of the best new research studies at the Fifth International Conference on Music Perception and Cognition held in Seoul, Korea, and was published in the fall of 1999 in the book Music, Mind and Science. Dr. Renninger’s recent research has been published in the leading music psychology journal, Music Perception
Research Interest
Dr. Renninger is an accomplished musician who has had a diverse range of musical experiences and has won several awards including the Toledo Ohio Young Artist Award. She has performed numerous times as a soloist with the Toledo Symphony Orchestra and has worked for several years as a rehearsal accompanist, chamber musician and church organist. She currently serves as the accompanist for the Shepherd Three wind trio. She truly enjoys teaching and is very committed to broadening student horizons in the field of music. In her free time she enjoys cooking, scuba diving and biking. She resides in Shepherdstown with her husband, son, and two daughters.
